Last week while I was watching the PBS miniseries Wolf Hall, my son happened to wander in during a particularly sad scene and, immediately intrigued, asked me what was going on. Without spoiling it for you if you haven’t seen it, or read the book, I’ll just say that I explained to him that someone had died of sweating sickness. He had never heard of it. I thought I’d re-post this blog that I wrote four years ago, in case there are others who might be interested in learning more about this awful and mysterious disease.

English physician John Caius

Two nights ago, I had one of those shivery, low-grade fevers. I’ve certainly felt way worse, but I didn’t feel up to anything more than lying on the couch and watching NBA playoffs. I happen not to be someone who sweats a lot—not to give you TMI, but please bear with me, as it’s relevant—and yet in the middle of the night I woke up drenched in sweat, the fever having broken. Which led me to the subject of today’s blog—that dreadful disease that swept through the sixteenth century for just about a hundred years, and then vanished as mysteriously as it had appeared: The Sweating Sickness, or The Sweats, as it was called.

As I lay there in the middle of the night, I knew I was fine. But I thought about how terrifying such symptoms would have been for people of the sixteenth century, and how many of them would have been dead within hours.

Henry, Duke of Suffolk, who died of the Sweats

His brother, Charles, who also got it–they died hours apart

Henry VIII’s older brother died of it. Thomas Cromwell’s wife and daughters all died of it. Ann Boleyn had it, but survived it. It wasn’t a disease of poverty and filth, as so many others seemed to be. The Duchess of Suffolk’s sons, Henry and Charles, died of it (see pictures–I find them especially poignant, perhaps because they were painted by the masterful Hans Holbein). During especially bad outbreaks, whole towns succumbed to the disease (according to some accounts, in places where it struck, 80 to 90% of the local population died of it). Thousands upon thousands of people died of this mysterious and highly contagious disease. Its cause continues to mystify medical historians.

The brief but terrifying visitation of the disease first occurred in 1485, then reappeared in four subsequent outbreaks, the last of which was 1551, after which it never reappeared. It seemed to favor the young and healthy. The last outbreak was witnessed and written about by the English physician, John Caius (or Kaye), whose pamphlet “The Sweate” was published in 1552.

The disease struck without warning, beginning with a chill and tremors, followed by a fever and profuse sweating. His description of symptoms included abdominal pains, headache, delirium, “passion of the heart” (some form of tachycardia), and “a marveilous heavinesse and a desire to sleape.”

The disease moved with frightening speed, killing many people within two or three hours. As one chronicler put it, there were “some merry at dinner and dedde at supper.”

Source: Hans Zinsser, Rats, Lice, and History, 1947